


The Losers Go Birding (Sorta)

by vogonssuck



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: College AU, M/M, Reddie, Stanlon - Freeform, fluffy nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 06:31:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12475540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogonssuck/pseuds/vogonssuck
Summary: The Losers, who attend the University of Maine, head to Acadia for some birdwatching. Stan (of all people) is distracted.





	The Losers Go Birding (Sorta)

**Author's Note:**

> Got inspired to write some fluffy Stanlon! But really I just wanted to write all of the Losers enjoying some time on the beach.

_Fuh-wee! Fuh-wee!_

 

“Stan, if you don’t stop replaying that clip, I will physically walk over to you and I will smother you with a pillow.”

Stan rolled over on his bed, one bronze curl flopping over his eyes. He swept the offending curl to the side and propped himself up on his elbows. “I need to figure out if it was an evening grosbeak I heard out on the Quad today. Gimme a few more minutes.”

 

_Fuh-wee! Fuh-wee!_

 

Eddie’s shoulders visibly hitched as he turned back to his desk. He exhaled, low and slow, and resumed craning over his organic chemistry textbook. The door to the room, which had been propped open slightly, swung open with a slight ‘whoosh’. Mike waved jovially at Eddie as he walked over to Stan’s bed. Upon arriving, he did a dramatic 180º spin and flopped onto the bed back first.

 “Where’s his pressure release valve? From the state of his shoulders I’d say we’re approaching a catastrophic meltdown…” he whispered to Stan, eyes glinting.

Stan snickered lightly. “Maybe Richie knows.”

Mike clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle his laughter. Stan bit his lip, holding his breath, but to no avail – he snorted loudly, and this sent Mike into hysterics. Across the room, Eddie slammed his chemistry textbook shut and practically stomped towards the door. The door swung open with gusto, hitting the adjacent wall, and in walked Richie.

“What is UP, my d –” Eddie barreled into Richie with his hands outstretched, pushing him back into the hallway. The sounds of Eddie and Richie bickering echoed down the hallway, growing gradually softer as they walked away.

Stan rolled over to face Mike, who was staring upwards and finger-drumming on his chest absentmindedly. He paused briefly, taking in the richness of Mike’s dark brown eyes and the smooth, rhythmic motions of his hands. He shook himself, and before Mike could notice he’d been staring, he asked, “So, whatcha got for today?”

“Oh!” Mike dug into the front pocket of his blue jeans and extracted a piece of paper folded into quarters. “I wrote ‘em down – I saw a boreal chickadee and a spruce grouse. Also, a harlequin duck down at the pond…”

“That’s awesome! I actually heard that there’s a small raft of them at Acadia as of, like, two weeks ago.”

Mike lit up. “Weekend trip?” Stan looked surprised for a split second, and his eyes lit up. “Sure! Saturday?”

“Saturday..." Stan leaned off the side of the bed to riffle through his backpack and pulled out his meticulously color-coded planner. He found no Saturday conflicts. "Sounds great – did you want to ask Ben too?” Their friend, Ben Hanscom, golden boy of the University of Maine’s architecture department, had also begun to keep a running list of the birds he saw around campus. Stan’s enthusiasm for ornithology was contagious among his friends – Mike and Ben at least.

“Ask Ben to what?” interjected Richie, who’d just walked back into the room, trailed by an increasingly frazzled Eddie. Stan looked at him for a moment, not unlike a deer in the headlights, and too-quickly replied

“Nothing,” his voice cracking on the second syllable.

“Smooth,” whispered Mike, the corner of his lip quirking.

“Am I bein’ excluded? I’ll simply die if no gentleman callers take _me_ to the cotillion,” Richie whined, affecting a breathy high-pitched Southern accent. “The vapors have come upon me, I declah,” he continued, collapsing dramatically on Eddie’s twin bed. Eddie glared at him murderously from across the room, where he was pawing through one of his drawers. Richie turned towards him. “Eddie, what ah you lookin’ fo’, darlin’?”

“My molecular model kit! I need it to study for the exam and I can’t find it anywhere!” Eddie snapped, running one hand through his hair. “I swear I had it in this drawer, it was right here! Now I’m going to fail this exam and it will be all your….”

“Didn’t you lend it to Bev last week?” Stan interrupted him gently, remembering very well that this was the case.

Eddie stopped and dragged his hands down his face, pulling his cheeks and lips down as he went. “Bev’s not even in orgo, what she needed with that is totally beyond me. Come on, Richie.” He hurriedly strode to the door, looking over his shoulder to confirm that Richie was following.

He was not. “Seriously, guys, what are you doing? I wanna know,” he wheedled.

Mike glanced at Stan, who shrugged in silent resignation. “We’re going bird-watching on Saturday. At Acadia,” Mike informed Richie. Mike did his best to state this matter-of-factly – in other words, to make it seem as unlike an invitation as possible – but the look on Richie’s face indicated he hadn’t taken the hint.

“Hell yeah! The Losers go birding! I’ll bring my binoculars – they’ll finally come in handy for something other than looking at Eddie’s mom.” Richie glanced back at Eddie to see how his joke had landed. Eddie gravely shook his head.

Stan and Mike looked at one another, eyes locked in a silent conversation. Mike bit in the inside of his cheek, almost imperceptibly lifting his brow. Stan nodded and turned back to Richie and Eddie, who was by now practically tapping his foot in anticipation of leaving. “Can you ask Bev if she wants to come when you find her? I’ve got a feeling Bill won’t be far off so ask him too.”

“Sure, whatever. And I’ll come too if I don’t fail orgo so hard they put me in jail. Richie?”

Richie clapped his hands to the sides of the bed to dramatically push himself up. “You’re running me ragged, Eds.” The expression Eddie offered in return could have wilted flowers, and Richie quickly decided he had better not take any chances. For once.

After Richie and Eddie had exited, closing the door on their way, Stan turned to Mike. “So are we actually going to see any birds or are these idiots going to scare them all away?” he asked, half-laughing.

“Guess we’ll find out!” Mike said, sitting up. “Hey, I’ve got to head out. Betty just texted me, needs me to cover her 11:30PM-4AM at the café.”

“But you just got here!” Stan nearly whined, pouting out his bottom lip. Mike chuckled and patted Stan’s shoulder. He stilled for a moment when Stan reached up and gently patted the top of Mike’s hand with his own. For a moment, their eyes locked, and then Mike huffed lightly and looked away.

“See you Saturday!” He walked out, turning to raise his hand in another reluctant goodbye before quietly shutting the door.

Stan rolled onto his back, scrubbing his face with the base of his palms. “Urhghguhggh,” he opined, perhaps a little more loudly than strictly necessary. He’d had feelings for Mike – decidedly more-than-friendly feelings – since the previous semester, when they’d taken Field Biology together. Somewhere between traipsing through the woods abutting campus together, calling out when they found sweet birch leaves or porcupine quills, Stan had come to appreciate Mike’s easy sense of humor. When Mike pointed out the first cardinal of the spring, lit in an old oak and puffing out his red breast-feathers proudly, Stan traced the line of his arm from shoulder to pointer finger, reveling in Mike’s quiet gracefulness. When Stan slipped on a smooth plate of shale, sliding into a section of the creek where water had pooled waist deep, he had nearly cried at the thought of the silt settling in the seams of his tailored and pressed khakis. Mike held in a laugh as he offered Stan his hand. Stan choked and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye as he accepted – Mike was level-headed and never mean-spirited, even in his ability to make light of less-than-ideal situations. Stan was smitten.

 

\- - - - - - - -

 

“Did anyone bring snacks?”

“I’ve got Poptarts and Skittles!”

“Jesus, Richie, your dentist is going to take out a hit on you.”

“Dr. Bates loves me. Think of all the business I give her! I call middle seat, I get carsick.”

Mike took a step back from the trunk of the Suburban, where he’d played a careful game of Tetris with the gang’s backpacks, the cooler, and Stan’s photography gear. After urging Ben, Bev, and Bill into the back three seats of the SUV, Stan jogged around to the back. He admired the neat and economical way Mike had organized everyone’s belongings for a moment before giving him a nod, signifying that they were ready to go. Stan slid into the middle seat opposite Richie, who cheerfully popped an entire handful of Skittles into his mouth. Mike, meanwhile, took his place in the driver’s seat. Eddie took shotgun by default as the group’s best navigator (though Richie fought him tooth and nail for the auxiliary cord).

“Ready, Eddie?”

“Coffee,” Eddie croaked, pinching the skin between his furrowed brow. Mike could see that this was non-negotiable. “Coffee it is, Eds!”

After Eddie was appropriately caffeinated, the crew set off in earnest. The hour-and-a-half trip to the park went as expected – Bev and Ben sang loudly and poorly to “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”, Bill retaliated by putting Ben in a headlock and crooning “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”, Eddie popped three aspirin and swallowed them dry, and Richie vomited out the window somewhere in the vicinity of Ellsworth. Stan, earbuds in, silently appreciated the ambiance of small-town New England autumn as it passed the SUV’s window. Occasionally he stole glances at Mike, whose eyes were trained on the road, hands firmly at ten and two. Disciplined. Stan liked that.

 

\- - - - - - - -

 

“Who’s got the sunscreen?”

“Comin’ at ya!”

Eddie, who had perked up considerably after his morning coffee, chucked a large squeeze-tube of SPF 100 at Bev. She did a quick twirl and caught it, throwing it into the opposite hand.

“Calm d-d-down, K-Kobe,” Bill grinned, pulling his backpack off the top of the heap in the trunk.

“Bite me, Denbrough. Hey, Eddie, you secretly a vampire or something? Seriously, SPF 100?” Bev called.

 Eddie good-naturedly flipped her off as he rummaged through the trunk for his own backpack.

“Hey Eddie, do you vant to suck my – OOF!” Eddie pivoted and flung his backpack at Richie’s midsection. Richie doubled over, coughing.

“Impeccable timing. I really didn’t want to hear whatever he had in mind,” whispered Ben to Eddie from the corner of his mouth. Eddie snickered, his hand meeting Ben’s in a subtle low-five.

“Everyone got everything?” Mike said, wincing as he shielded his eyes from the sun. A general, noncommittal murmur of assent arose from the group. “Well, that sounded sort of like a yes, so let’s roll out! Stan, you’re leading the way.” He stepped aside, gesturing grandly to the trailhead flanking the parking lot. Stan blushed and gave Mike a half-smile, eyes crinkling. Mike looked away in a manner that Stan might’ve called bashful.

 “Stan the Man’s calling the shots!” Richie cheered in a non-committal take on his Announcer Voice. Stan looked at him reproachfully before turning and striding toward the trailhead.

 “Jordan Pond’s just through these trees.”

 “O-o-o-onwards, men! And B-B-Bev!” Bev shoulder-checked Bill as she raced toward Stan, pulling Ben behind her.

 Though it was sunny, the weather was crisp. Occasionally touristy types, maps held at arms’ length, passed around the margins of the pond, but for the most part the Losers were alone. Bev took off her shoes, cuffed her bootcut blue jeans, and walked through the shallow and clear portions of the pond nearest the shore. Here and there she craned to inspect a particularly smooth and flat rock, sometimes deigning to skip it across the pond’s placid surface. Ben was nearby, also selecting choice rocks. Once he’d collected a few, he toted them in the hem of his shirt to an outcropping of red granite. The rock had toppled against itself in shear layers, leaving it peculiarly tilted and cracked; interspersed randomly throughout the rock’s face were small, craggy niches. It was in one of these that Ben had begun to build a small cairn. He deliberately selected each rock with the focus of a sculptor, assessing their respective shapes and centers of gravity before balancing them on the ones below.

 Eddie, meanwhile, had spread out a towel and planted an umbrella in the sand. There he sat poring over his physics textbook and mumbling to himself as he tried to memorize the material. His brow was knitted in concentration, and he unconsciously dug his toes into the sand (the only part of him which emerged from the shadow of his umbrella). Richie lay on the sand next to him, hands crossed over his chest in a rare moment of silence. He lolled his head to the left, peering at Eddie over the top of his obnoxious aviator sunglasses. He flopped his forearm onto Eddie’s towel. Eddie grinned at him and reached down to give his hand a quick squeeze before turning his attention back to his textbook.

 Bill, who was perched atop a rock hugging his knees to his chest, quirked a small smile. “Hey, St-St-Stan, are y-you seeing this gay sh-sh-sh…” he began jokingly, faltering when he turned to Stan and noticed that the bronze-haired boy’s attention was elsewhere. Bill followed Stan’s line of sight to Mike, who had wandered over to the water’s edge to get a better view of the seabirds dashing small crabs against the rocks. Bill was observant – he saw the way that Stan’s chest rose and fell in a small, contented sigh as he watched Mike. Bill nudged Stan lightly with his arm. When Stan didn’t respond, Bill dug his elbow into Stan’s upper arm. Stan nearly jumped out of his skin, startled from his reverie. His eyes shot daggers at Bill as he turned to him, rubbing his arm accusatorily. Bill craned his head in Mike’s direction and raised his eyebrow.

 “Oh, fuck off.”

 Bill raised his eyebrow further.

 “You put that down right now.”

 Bill strained to raise it further, making him look a bit bug-eyed.

 “Okay,” Stan admitted quietly.

 “The f-f-first step is a-acknowledging you h-h-h-have a problem,” Bill chided. “Th-th-though I’d c-call this the o-op-opposite of a problem. Go.”

 Stan rocked forward on his palms, and then hesitated. Bill clapped him on the back forcefully and Stan unbalanced, stepping hard off the rock. He took a moment to glare at Bill before rolling his shoulders back and adjusting his collar. After taking a deep breath, he began walking toward Mike. He noticed the wind ruffling Mike’s red and green flannel shirt, and the way he rocked back onto his heels as he observed a gull at the apex of its flight, preparing to dive. He noticed the thin sheen of sweat on Mike’s forehead, the way he worried his lip with his bottom teeth as he maneuvered his binoculars. He noticed how Mike’s cheek dimpled when he grinned at the seagull’s plunge.

 Stan did not notice the beached fish, long dead, lying directly in his path – that is, until he stepped on it. The unfamiliar sensation coupled with the realization of what it had been ignited Stan’s flight response and he managed to take two erratic, leaping bounds before tripping over a piece of driftwood. His momentum sent him flying into Mike, who lost his balance and toppled.

 When the dust settled, so to speak, Stan took a moment to assess his surroundings. Left hand, braced in sand. He could feel the grit under his fingernails. Right hand, fisted in thick flannel. What? Knees, dug into the sand and potentially skinned. Face, buried in that same thick flannel – the portion covering Mike’s chest. Stan flipped his hair to the side and looked up. Mike, who had caught his fall with his palms, was propping himself up with his right hand and clutching his binoculars in his left. He looked down at Stan incredulously, still processing the chain of events which had landed them this way. Stan’s cheeks burned, his forehead burned. He felt that he had never been redder.

 The situation was already absurd, Stan reasoned.

 Did that count as reasoning?

 Stan redoubled his grip on Mike’s flannel and pulled him downwards into a kiss. To Stan’s surprise, Mike didn’t freeze or pull away – he leaned into the kiss, cupping Stan’s jaw with a gentle hand. When the kiss broke, Stan opened his eyes and looked into Mike’s. They were twinkling with happiness. Mike laughed and ruffled Stan’s hair, mussing his curls. “Hey! No fair!” Stan cried, but his indignation was fake – he had never felt happier.

 “What’s going on over there?” Eddie queried, looking over the top of textbook. Richie laboriously propped himself up on his arms and lowered his sunglasses. “Some gay shit.”

“Richie.”

“ _Kidding_.”

 

\- - - - - - - -

 

“So you guys a thing now, or what?” Bev whispered in Stan’s ear. The gang had stopped into a diner in Bar Harbor, and were waiting for their food with bated breath. Bev, Stan, Eddie, and Richie crowded one side of the booth, while Mike, Ben, and Bill occupied the other.

“Can I have like...five minutes to think?” Stan hissed, but underlying his snark was happy disbelief.

“Don’t keep us waiting too long,” Bev replied cheekily, pulling one of Stan’s springy curls.


End file.
